A warning to new readers - I am a 30 year old male living in Leeds, England and became a father for the first time in May 2012 (for more of those adventures, go to justjaking.blogspot.com). My blogs are written part as a diary of things that have happened, part as reflections on things that I'm thinking about. With this in mind, there is a certain amount of rambling and thought hopping that you may find charming or irksome. In either case, the warning is that I write these posts for me and if by happy coincidence you enjoy them too, that's an added bonus.
My baby is in love with being outside, and those who know him will testify to the fact that he can be in the middle of a full blown melt down and will stop crying immediately as you take him over the front door threshold. He's an all weather kid and is equally happy in the sweltering sun as he is in a blizzard (believe me, we've been outside in both!). To this end, I'm always on the lookout for ways to spend more time outside with him.
I've always been a keen hiker and enjoy going walking, especially when there's a good view from up high to be had. My friend Matt is also a big walker and regularly spends holidays with his family in the Lake District. We also see a lot of him and his girlfriend Vicky so it was natural to talk to him about a walking project to do with Jake, my son.
I had seen signposts for the Leeds Country Way in parts of Golden Acre Park (I will say here that I will be making references to places in Leeds, if you want more information about where they are, Google them) and had been intrigued to find out more. On the Leeds City Council website, I discovered exactly the project I was looking for. The Leeds Country Way is a 62 mile loop all around Leeds and the kind folks at the city council have broken it up into 12 5 mile sections, each complete with a little map and walking instructions.
This idea appealed to me for many reasons. Firstly, Jake naps around every 3 hours or so, so a long hike up Scarfell is out of the question (for now) but a five mile walk allows for a couple of hours of walking and a coffee break (essential for Matt and I). Secondly, as my wife comes from America, we're planning on emigrating there in a couple of years, so I want to see as much of England, in particular Leeds as possible. Thirdly, and quite closely tied into secondly, is that my son is half English but will grow up in America. I want him to have a connection to the country of his birth and by taking pictures as we go round (Matt is an ace photographer!) and blogging about each leg of the journey, I'll hopefully be able to provide him with a feeling for what the mother land is like. Finally, the idea of exploring new parts of Leeds and seeing how it all connects up excites me. My years of wandering the world are on hold for a while until Jake grows up so any time that I can indulge my wanderlust is always going to be good.
The format for this blog will be fairly simple. 12 stages, 12 posts, 12 series of pictures, 12 lots of thought and comments about the walk. We've set ourselves a very relaxed target of finishing the loop before the end of 2013 but with the first two legs already completed, we should be done way before then.
P.S. If this sounds like your idea of fun, give me a shout and we'll let you know when we're next hitting the trail.
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